plus, mayhem in the middle east as worries grow that syria may use chemical weapons and egypt moves closer to civil war. can the u.s. stay on the sidelines much longer? and a military judge moved from the trial of ahsan after demanding the army major shave. did the order show bias? >> ♪ >> welcome to the journal, he editorial report. little progress this week in evidence to avoid january's looming tax and spending cuts commonly known as the fiscal cliff. despite a call between president obama and john boehner, the two sides appear to be no closer to a compromise. are republicans working on the scenes on a plan b? wall street journal columnist, dan henninger and kim strassel. you have bean working the phones, is there something going on between speaker boehner and the president? >> no, i think that they are nowhere and it's because the president is refusing to budge at all on the top toks ratestopx rates and we'll go off the cliff if the republicans don't acreed to that demand. so we're still at a stand still. >> paul: kim, why is the president so insistent on increasing tax rates? boehne